Jewels in His Heart
by Entwife Incognito
Summary: Jane has something to share with Lisbon, something he has shared with no one. Because he wants her to know him. It's not easy, but beautiful things can happen even in an FBI detention cell in Austin, Texas. Rated "T" as a precaution for some violent imagery, not over the top. Angsty. One-shot. No sex in this one. :) Disclaimer: I own nothing about The Mentalist.


"Will you come to visit me sometimes? I don't know how long it will take to get free."

"Yes, Jane, as often as I can. In a few weeks, if you're still here. Is that soon enough?"

"No." He smiled sadly at her. "But I'll be so happy to see you. I've missed you terribly. It seems so unfair, now . . . ."

"It is unfair. All of it is, has been. But you're almost there, now. You were right to come home. We'll write and I'll see you soon."

"As often as you can?"

"Of course!" She looked at him in mock astonishment. "You think I'm going to forget you?"

"No. I'll see you soon. There's something I want to talk to you about—I need to talk to you about."

He watched as she tilted her beautiful head and the chocolate waves of her hair flowed with her movement. He remembered the small, warm smile from when he woke up in the hospital. "See you soon." When she opened her arms to him, he gripped her like a drowning man, smelling her hair as if it was for the last time, relishing the tickle as it fell across his hand.

"See you, Teresa."

Lisbon felt sharp, hot pain wash over her shoulders and chest as she left the building. She recognized it as loss, grief, and she told herself it wouldn't last long. She'd get into her routine and the time would pass quickly, just a few weeks after all. With that, she shook herself, straightened her shoulders and got into the rental to head for the airport, and home.

When she returned to Austin, the weather was chillier than she expected, the skies gray. Jane looked a little thinner, the lines on his face showed a deepening sadness.

She hugged him hello and handed him a bag with two blueberry muffins.

"Could we get some tea in here, please?" His voice was loud, but not rude and the response from the guard outside the door was, "Glad to, Mr. Jane. What's your pleasure today?"

"Thanks, Winston. How about some of the Paris for my friend, here? She'll love the apricot notes. And could we have another chair so one of us doesn't have to sit on the bed?"

They heard the scratchy rumble of the request being made and answered on Winston's radio, and it wasn't long until the tea arrived and a second chair with it. They sat at the desk together.

"Mmmmm. Jane, this is delicious! Thank you."

His grin was slightly lopsided, something she'd only seen one time before when he couldn't take his eyes from her as they sat in the FBI conference room awaiting Abbott's double-cross. Her blood had nearly effervesced under that look, so much pleasure in it that it made her giddy. And then he had sighed, still grinning that crooked grin, contentment and comfort and relief. She had wanted to kiss him so bad.

Accepting a small chunk of his muffin, she refused the other one, saying he should have most of the treat.

"I'll save the other one for later, then." He paused. "About what I wanted to tell you . . . "

Lisbon looked at him and nodded, sipping the last of her tea.

"It's about Angela and Charlotte . . . "

"Your wife and daughter." The thought of anything Jane had to say about them terrified her. He had never really spoken about them to her personally at all. She set her teacup gently in its saucer, hoping to soften the clatter in her heart by quieting the china.

"Yes. I want you to know some things about them."

Something cold went through her like the edge of a knife. "Jane. You're not making some kind of a last confession here. You're not thinking of, of—doing yourself in, or something?"

The laugh he gave was bitter. "No. Of course not. I could have done that any time." He looked directly into Lisbon's eyes. "I chose to live. A long time ago. My reasons for staying alive have changed." A little smile crossed his lips. "But that's a good thing."

Lisbon leaned back in her chair. "Okay, then, tell me. I'm ready to listen to anything you want to say to me."

He started at the beginning. How he'd met Angela, how their relationship grew to love, what it was like between them as partners in a marriage. He cried when he talked about Angela's pregnancy, the thrill of it and then being a father, how much he had loved it, how precious he felt Charlotte was, fresh every time he looked at her. He talked of the things they liked to do as a family, especially living together on the beach in Malibu. Even what he saw as his shortcomings as a husband and father, that he had to make a living for his family, and that even though Angela disliked his occupation, she accepted that there was nothing he was better trained for.

When he came to that dark day, lodged in the darkest pit of his memory, Lisbon was afraid for him. "You don't have to—"

"Yes. I do. I want to tell you everything." He gasped, his eyes already watering and red. "But, maybe you don't want . . . . maybe it's too much. I shouldn't burden you with it."

"That's not true, Patrick. It's not a burden to hear what you want to share with me. I'm afraid, that's all. Afraid for it to hurt you all over again by telling me." She was trembling and felt the gray chill of the day. "Please tell me whatever you want to tell me."

"Can I sit next to you on the bed?"

"Yes! I don't want you to have to be so alone. Or me, when I hear it," she confessed. They moved to sit on the bed, backs against the wall and feet dangling the side. The warmth of his body so near comforted Teresa.

"I was so high on myself, that great television gig. Spouting off."

"You didn't know. How could anyone know?"

Jane lowered his head and nodded. "If I had just known . . . I would never have—"

"Of course you wouldn't have. But you didn't know, Jane, you didn't. You were just trying to make a living for your family. Being the best showman you could so they would have everything."

"Yes! Yes, Lisbon! It's all I wanted." Tears ran down his cheeks as he looked at her, gratefully. "And so I said those things about . . . about him . . . "

"About Red John."

"Red John, yes." He ground the words out like a curse. "And I came home. And I went up the stairs, and I saw the note. And I thought my girls had gone out somewhere." His voice broke into suppressed sobs as he tried to continue speaking.

Lisbon watched the emotion stretch and bend his face into something almost unrecognizable, the cords of his neck drawn as tight as his jaw, his skin almost purple with pain and rage. Yet she could still see the ache, the betrayal of a small boy hurt to the core with no one to turn to. She snaked her arm behind his back and pulled him close.

"And I read the note. And I was cold and so afraid, and I wanted to vomit, but I couldn't take the time because I had to open that door. I had to get to them, Lisbon. It couldn't be too late. They had to be all right."

"I know. I know." Lisbon tightened her embrace.

"And I opened the door. And the smell of blood came out like a beast. I was so afraid to go in. But I had to, to get to them, to make them safe. The room made no sense. It had a clown mark on the wall, a red clown mark. And then I looked down and, and there were my girls and I was so happy. Did they fall asleep while they were changing from their bathing suits? Why were they staring like that? What were they wearing? Their suits were all red and sticky. And the smell, god, the smell Lisbon."

Lisbon was sobbing now, her head against his arm, holding onto Jane as much for herself as for him.

"It wasn't bathing suits. It was their blood, pooled where he had cut them open and left them for me to see, all torn open. My beautiful Angela with her toenails painted in her blood. And my poor little girl. Charlotte, Charlotte! Why did he have to hurt her, a baby? Why, Lisbon?"

Nearly strangled with emotion, Lisbon managed to croak out, "To hurt you. To hurt you so bad you'd never forget."

"He must have called it in himself. Because police and ambulances just came out of nowhere. All for some silly insult to him on a television program. Why? Why did I have to do it?"

"You didn't know. How could you know this would happen? No one would know."

"I should have known. Me! The psychic. The mentalist. I couldn't figure that out?" He lay completely on her, sobbing into her neck as she stroked his hair and rubbed his scalp.

"No one could imagine such a horrible thing. No one but a demon like him. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry this happened to you. Your beautiful Angela and Charlotte. I wish I could take it away. That you could be happy. With them."

Jane sat up then and looked at Lisbon's wrecked face with the wreckage of his own. "Yes. I know you do. You are the most remarkable person I've ever met, Lisbon. Ever." He pushed the damp hair from her face, letting his hand fill with it as he caressed the waves to the ends where they crashed on the beach of her back. "All these years. You've been there for me. Even when I've been a jerk, calling me on it. But always there. That's why I wanted to tell you. So you'd know what was inside me. So I wouldn't have to hide it from you anymore."

"That's not the only thing inside you." She brushed the tears from his face with the flat of her fingers and pushed the fallen curls from his forehead. "There's a sweet, kind man in there who loves life and loves simple, beautiful things. And so clever and confident. What would we do without you, Jane? What would I have done?"

"Yes. But you'd give it all up to see me happy with my family and never to have known me."

Lisbon gulped, a chasm of sorrow opening at the thought. "Yes. Yes, I would. That would make me the happiest of all."

"Oh, Lisbon—" Jane grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace, his words lost as he breathed long sighs of relief, his chest heaving against hers. Then he laughed. "You don't even know how wonderful you are."

She pulled away, pushing lightly against his chest. "Me? Wonderful? I rode your ass for years. Please. How was that wonderful?"

"It was." He paused, looking at her warmly. "Sit right here. I'll get cool cloths."

They moaned as the cool wet soothed their faces. Lisbon handed her cloth back to Jane. "Thanks. That feels much better."

Jane held her cloth up. "Your make-up . . . by your eyes . . . "

"Oh." Lisbon reached for the cloth and moved to get up and go to the bathroom mirror.

"I'll get it."

Jane put a hand on her shoulder and carefully removed the errant marks on her face. "There. Not much. Easier for me to do it than make you get up. And anyway, I didn't want you to go away just yet." He tossed the cloths to the desktop.

"I wasn't going away. Just to the bathroom."

"Not even that far. Just for a minute." He fidgeted a little, then brought both hands between them. "I told you all that for a reason." Sighing, a wide grin of pleasure broke across his face.

"Yeah?" It gave her pleasure to see him with a happy expression.

"Yes." He removed his ring. "I wanted to do this. And I wanted you to see." Holding up the gold circle, he frowned a little. "I don't need it there any longer. But, would you mind if I wore it . . . here?" He placed it on the ring finger of his right hand.

Lisbon smiled as if a miracle had taken place before her eyes. "Mind? Why would I mind? It's the perfect place, isn't it?"

"Yes. I have the remembrance, honoring them. But it won't hold me back anymore."

"That's, that's wonderful, Jane." Holding out her hand, she hoped that he would put his in it, and he did. She stroked the indentation where the ring had been. "Any woman would be lucky to have a man as faithful and brave as you." She let go of his hand and he withdrew it, almost reluctantly.

"Thank you, Teresa. Thank you for calling me faithful and brave. It means a lot."

"No thanks necessary. It's who you are and I know it."

"And now I want to give you something. Something gentle and sweet. And I hope you'll give it back."

When she looked up at him, puzzled, he gazed warmly into her eyes and moved his face close to hers. She held her breath as he touched his lips softly to hers. When he created a little suction, a request for her, she returned the kiss. When they broke apart, she smiled at him with delight, breathing fast. He scooped her into his arms and they gave each other a tight squeeze.

"That's all I can handle for today. Here." He rolled his eyes, meaning his cell. She winked at him, her face aglow. "Maybe the tea hasn't gone cold. And I can eat that other muffin now."

"Yes. Let's not forget your stomach on this momentous occasion."

"Hey!" he teased. "I seem to remember a time when you were asking about an apple after I got kidnapped and cattle-prodded!"

"You mean, after WE got kidnapped . . . "

And they fell into the comfortable banter of old and familiar friends, but with a new easiness and pleasure, an expectation of good things to come, even from an FBI detention cell in Austin.


End file.
